I noticed during setup the screen that shows all of your premiere boxes on your network also has the option "I don't see my premiere" or something like that. Is that what you chose to get around having to allocate and then deallocate a tuner?

I noticed during setup the screen that shows all of your premiere boxes on your network also has the option "I don't see my premiere" or something like that. Is that what you chose to get around having to allocate and then deallocate a tuner?

Click to expand...

If I recall correctly, it just asked during setup if you wanted to allocate a tuner, and you could choose not to allocate one.

I don't remember being asked that, but I do remember some screen that mentioned that if I wanted to watch live TV I had to allocate a tuner on the host. But it's not like it was going to do it automatically. It was just explaining the process.

I don't remember being asked that, but I do remember some screen that mentioned that if I wanted to watch live TV I had to allocate a tuner on the host. But it's not like it was going to do it automatically. It was just explaining the process.

I just finished hooking up my 2nd mini. Setup definitely forces you to allocate a tuner and then you can un-allocate it if you wish.

An interesting thing happened this time when I called to pay for the lifetime service. After I paid, the person said he needed to tell me a few things about setup. He told me you need to allocate and then un-allocate the XL4 tuner. He told me three minis can be on the same XL4. He also told me the Mini has a built-in tuner that in the future will be used to tune live tv and you won't need to allocate a XL4 tuner.

He also told me the Mini has a built-in tuner that in the future will be used to tune live tv and you won't need to allocate a XL4 tuner.

Click to expand...

I call BS on that one. Even if Mini has internal tuner (which I highly doubt) it would need a CableCard to tune most digital channels, and there is no CableCard slot anywhere in the Mini. Maybe he was confusing Mini with Preview which does have a tuner plus CableCard slot.

To be clear, the Mini itself already has dynamic tuner behavior. Case in point is you can have only 1 tuner allocated to 2 Minis and they can both grab that same tuner (not at same time of course), or another tuner from same host if made available. So Dynamic Tuner Allocation feature will be a change to the host unit, not the Mini.

They use to make a Mini with a built in tuner that they sold to cable companies. It was called the Preview. The Mini does not have a tuner. The only reason it has a coax port is because it supports MoCa.

To be clear, the Mini itself already has dynamic tuner behavior. Case in point is you can have only 1 tuner allocated to 2 Minis and they can both grab that same tuner (not at same time of course), or another tuner from same host if made available. So Dynamic Tuner Allocation feature will be a change to the host unit, not the Mini.

Click to expand...

Complete speculation on my part but I would surmise that they could be making changes on both devices (Host DVR and Mini) to implement Dynamic Tuner Allocation.

They may need some software tweeks on the mini side to deal with tuner conflicts (i.e. show needs to record using the tuner the Mini has allocated) but moyekj is right in that the allocation of the tuner itself is already dynamic on the Mini's end. Although for all we know those conflict screens already exist in the current Mini software and the Tivo side just isn't setup to send out the message to display them yet.

I wonder if, once this is live, we'll see real live TV support in the iPad app with Stream? Rather then the record and play macro they use now.